Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - March 25, 2024, Winnipeg, Manitoba Be Inspired Enjoy the fragrant, tranquil beauty of plants at The Leaf. Connect with incredible animals at the Zoo. Get the best of both worlds with an Inspire or Inspire Conservation membership. Members receive discounts, invitations to previews, pre-sale opportunities for special events and more exclusive benefi ts! Don’t miss Brasil Moderno on now at The Leaf and FREE for Leaf members. Visit assiniboinepark.ca to choose your membership option today! MONDAY, MARCH 25, 2024WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM ● A5 NEWS I LOCAL / WORLD JOHN WOODS / FREE PRESS CELEBRATING WOMEN Tara Chartrand, a psychic medium, speaks at the Winnipeg Women’s Show at the RBC Convention Centre Sunday. The show, which began Saturday, celebrates the strength, beauty and diversity of women with live presentations, special perform- ances and hundreds of booths that support women entrepreneurs. Senegal votes in tightly contested presidential race after months of unrest D AKAR, Senegal — Senegalese voted Sunday in a tightly contested presidential race fol- lowing months of uncertainty and unrest that has tested the West African nation’s reputa- tion as a stable democracy in a region shaken by a wave of coups in recent years. The election comes after President Macky Sall unsuccessfully tried to postpone the Feb. 25 vote until the end of the year, sparking violent pro- tests. Sall is barred by the constitution from seek- ing a third term. As a result, the vote took place during Ramadan, the holy month when observant Muslims fast from dawn until dusk. Vote counting began in the early evening in a tense atmosphere in some parts of the country. In St. Louis, a major fishing town, a crowd booed and threw stones at a government delegation that entered a polling station after the polls closed. Observers said turnout among the more than 7 million registered voters appeared to be high in the morning. Babacar Gueye, who heads Sen- egal’s COSCE civil society network of observers, said participation was important to give the elec- tion legitimacy. “At the opening of polling stations today, I have never in the past 15 years seen so many people going to vote,” he told The Associated Press. Lines formed outside polling stations around the capital Dakar. Roads were quiet as the na- tion’s elite police force was deployed across the city in armoured vehicles, checking voters’ cards. Official results are expected next week, but the leading candidates said they would al- ready know first results Sunday night. In the run-up to Sunday’s election, opposition leader Ousmane Sonko was released from pris- on last week, triggering jubilant celebrations on the streets of Dakar and renewed excitement about the contest. Sonko was barred from run- ning due to a prior conviction for defamation, and is backing his key ally Bassirou Diomaye Faye, who was also freed from prison last week. Khodia Ndiayes, a 52-year-old cook, said she picked Faye on the ballot because she wanted Sonko to win. “I’m proud to have voted,” she said. “We need a new president because life is expensive, the economy is bad and we need better schools.” At the forefront of concerns for many Sen- egalese voters is the economy, which has been squeezed by high food and energy prices part- ly driven by the war in Ukraine. Almost a third of Senegal’s youth are unemployed, according to the independent researcher Afrobarometer, driving thousands to risk their lives on danger- ous journeys in search of jobs in the West. “Young people have master’s degrees but they’re selling coffee on the side of the street or are motorbike taxi drivers — there’s no work,” said Cheikh Omar Sy, who works for an inter- national development agency in Dakar. Senegal has stood apart in a region where the military has seized power from civilian gov- ernments in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso. The election is set to be the nation’s fourth democrat- ic transfer of power since it gained independ- ence from France in 1960. Despite Senegal’s record, the electoral pro- cess over the past year has been marred by violence and unrest, with dozens killed and hun- dreds of opposition protesters jailed. There are 19 candidates in the race, including one woman, the highest number in the nation’s history, al- though a couple dropped out to support the team backed by Sonko. Analysts say no candidate is expected to win more than 50 per cent of the vote, which means a runoff is likely and more coalition building could lie ahead. But by Sunday evening, sup- porters of the Sonko-Faye team were already celebrating in the streets of Dakar, sitting on car rooftops and setting off fireworks. Along with Faye, aspirants include Amadou Ba, a former prime minister, Khalifa Sall, a for- mer mayor of Dakar unrelated to the president, and Idrissa Seck, a former prime minister from the early 2000s who was the runner up in the 2019 presidential race. Ba told voters after casting his ballot that the campaign had been a success and the results would be known by the end of Sunday. Faye also said results would be known in a few hours, expressing confidence their team would win. Sonko promised a resounding victory on his YouTube channel. Reflecting how the government crackdown on protests has driven up support for the opposition party, Mame Diarra Juey, a 29-year-old admin- istrator, told the AP she had spent a month in prison after police found in her handbag a mem- bership bracelet belonging to the now-dissolved party led by Sonko. “It really impacted me but I realized there is a huge need to change the system and the regime. Now I’m raising awareness in my community on the importance of voting,” she said. But for others, Sonko’s fierce rhetoric denoun- cing corruption and the government’s ties with foreign powers has been alarming. “I voted for Amadou Ba, and I’m not hiding the fact,” said Ndeye Sylla, 35. “He’s a states- man with a lot of experience. He can take the country very far. Senegal needs peace and se- renity. I think Amadou Ba is the only one ca- pable of helping the country.” — The Associated Press JESSICA DONATI, BABACAR DIONE AND JACK THOMPSON Chick-Fil-A backtracks from ‘no antibiotics ever’ pledge ATLANTA — The fast-food chain Chick-Fil-A backtracked from its decade-old “no antibiotics ever” pledge intended to help prevent human anti- biotic resistance linked to the rampant use of the drugs in livestock production. Instead, the company said in a statement that it will embrace a standard known as “no antibiotics important to human medicine,” often abbreviated as NAIHM, which entails the avoidance of medi- cations commonly used to treat people and limits the use of animal antibiotics to cases of actual animal illness. Livestock producers have long used antibiot- ics to boost rapid weight gain in animals such as chickens, pigs, cows and sheep, improving the profitability of their businesses. Over the past decade, however, many nations, including the United States, have begun to restrict the practice as evidence mounted that it was contributing to drug resistance and reducing the effectiveness of antibiotics against disease in humans. Chick-Fil-A said it will begin shifting to the new policy in the spring of 2024. A company spokes- man added that the move reflects company con- cerns about its ability to acquire sufficient sup- plies of antibiotic-free chicken. One of the poultry industry’s largest companies, Tyson Foods, said last year that it was reintroducing some antibiot- ics to its chicken production and removing its “No Antibiotics Ever” package labelling. It began to eliminate antibiotics from some of its poultry pro- duction in 2015. In a May 2023 video featured on the Tyson Foods YouTube channel, Tyson’s senior director of animal welfare, Karen Christensen, described the shift as “based on scientific research and in- dustry learnings.” She noted that Tyson planned to begin using antibiotics known as ionophores, which don’t play a role in human medicine, to “im- prove the overall health and welfare of the birds in our care.” Ionophores have long been used to promote growth in livestock. — The Associated Press ;